On September 30, the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Caucus invites PIPSC members across Canada to pause, reflect and take action as we mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day.
This is a day to honour Residential School Survivors, their families and communities, and to remember the children who never returned home. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the ongoing work of truth, justice, healing and reconciliation.
For many Indigenous people, this day carries deeply personal meaning. For everyone in our union, it is an opportunity to listen, learn, and consider what reconciliation requires of each of us, not only on September 30, but throughout the year.
Join us in Ottawa
PIPSC members and staff will be participating in the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s Remembering the Children commemoration in Ottawa.
PIPSC participants will gather at the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument in Confederation Park before walking together to Parliament Hill. The event, organized in partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, will include an Indigenous prayer and smudging ceremony, followed by the walk to Parliament Hill.
The national commemoration will bring together Survivors, Elders, Indigenous leaders and Canadians to remember the children who never came home and honour Survivors and their families.
The event will also be broadcast nationally through APTN, CBC, Radio-Canada, and other broadcasters and streaming services, allowing PIPSC members from coast to coast to participate together, even if they cannot be in Ottawa
If you are in the National Capital Region, we encourage you to join us in person. If you are elsewhere in Canada, consider watching the national broadcast from wherever you are.
Find an event in your community
Truth and Reconciliation is taking place in communities and cities throughout the country, with opportunities to learn, reflect, remember and participate.
Events are already being held across the country, including the South Island Powwow in Victoria; events and gatherings in Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg; programming in Toronto; and the annual TRC Mawi’omi in Charlottetown.
We encourage members to look for an Indigenous-led event in their own community and participate where they can.
From commemoration to action
Wearing orange and attending an event are important acts of remembrance, but reconciliation doesn’t end on September 30.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave Canada 94 Calls to Action because remembrance must lead to change.
That principle applies to our union as well.
As members of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Caucus, we believe that reconciliation includes ensuring that Indigenous voices are meaningfully represented in the institutions and organizations that shape workers’ lives.
That means listening to Indigenous members.
It means recognizing lived experience and community knowledge.
It means examining how our own structures operate.
And it means being prepared to make meaningful changes when existing systems do not adequately reflect the people they are intended to represent.
Take one action today
As we approach the 2026 PIPSC Annual General Meeting, members have an opportunity to help advance this work within our own union.
Several important equity-related resolutions will be considered at the AGM. These include resolutions that would strengthen representation of equity-deserving groups on the Human Rights and Diversity Committee and recognize lived experience as an important qualification for representation.
The PIPSC Board of Directors has agreed to sponsor these resolutions.
We are asking PIPSC members to learn about these proposals, speak with their local representatives and AGM delegates, and encourage them to support meaningful Indigenous representation and recognition of lived experience within our union’s human rights and equity structures.
Write to your PIPSC representative or AGM delegate today.
Tell them that you support meaningful representation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis members within PIPSC structures and that lived experience should be recognized as an important qualification when selecting representatives.
You can use your own words, share your own experiences and explain why representation matters to you.
Your voice matters. Your participation matters. And your willingness to support change matters.
This September 30, let us remember the children who never came home, honour Survivors and their families, listen to Indigenous voices, and consider what reconciliation asks of all of us.
Then let us turn that reflection into action.
Every Child Matters. Truth must lead to action. Reconciliation is everyone’s responsibility.
